Be Careful Who You Work For
by Art Berkowitz

Being a somewhat accomplished speaker, and I thought a good negotiator, I was offered the opportunity to work for a company who put on presentations for CPAs across the country. I spoke to my good friend Vern Hoven who has been speaking to that market a lot longer than I have.

Yes, he knew them well. He told me they were a very difficult company to work for and they could be very cheap.

Well, since I had sufficient warning, I felt I was prepared. I negotiated a fee that was well above the amount most other speakers in the market were getting and told them I would handle my own travel plans (within their price guidelines).

The first year went poorly. I did not anticipate all of the problems that could possibly go wrong working for a company that didn’t really care about its speakers.

But the money was good and the next year I would plan for all of the contingencies. Well, I didn’t plan for them booking a hotel that was in the midst of construction. (Yes they knew about it but didn’t tell me.) I didn’t plan for meeting rooms that weren’t set up according to my directions or not having enough manuals for all of the participants. In fact there were many things I still hadn’t planned on. (It seems hotels that aren’t treated well also don’t really care how they treat these customers.)

The Lesson: I learned that you can’t change people who don’t really care and you can’t be prepared for all that can go wrong. After two years of doing seminars for this company, I learned that my time and my integrity were more important than the money.